Nuts (Hudson Valley, #1)(31)

“Technically it’s my family’s property, but yes. We’re not even halfway across the preserve,” he said, walking over to the biggest tree, knotted and gnarled.

I marveled at the idea that this family had owned so much land for so long. “So this is a walnut tree, huh? I never would have known.”

“I wouldn’t have known either, until I was out here one day in the fall and found all the husks on the ground. We’ve got another grove over by the main orchards, but we still come in and harvest here every year.”

“And the house? Was this one your family built?” I asked, looking back toward the stone foundation.

“I don’t think so. I’ve looked on a bunch of old maps and surveys of the property, and it seems like it’s part of an older farm that was abandoned long before the Maxwells arrived.” He said his family name with a trace of bitterness. But before I could ask anything else, he turned toward me. “Anyway, I just thought you might like to see it.”

“It’s nice back here. It’s quiet, peaceful. There’s pockets of peaceful where I live now, but you have to drive pretty far to find them.”

“I’ve been to LA many times. Peaceful isn’t the first word that springs to mind.”

“Hmm,” I said, leaning my head back against the tree and staring up into the canopy. The green overlapped, leaves and limbs weaving together, swaying high in a breeze that didn’t make it down to where we standing. Leo leaned against his tree, I leaned against mine, and we were content to drink in the stillness of being so deep in a forest. I breathed in the smell of the dusty, crunchy leaves, the grassy scent of growing things, exhaling in a long slow sigh.

“Was that a ‘this place is boring’ sigh?” he asked from across the clearing.

I shook my head. “Hell no. That was a ‘what a good day this turned out to be’ sigh. Perfect weather, perfect temperature, perfect setting. I got to see why chickens cross the road, and see where walnuts come from. Compared to what my days have been like in LA lately, this was exactly what I needed.”

“A good-day sigh,” he repeated, pushing off from his tree and walking slowly toward me.

“A great-day sigh,” I amended.

“An upgrade? Why the change from good to great?”

He was close enough now that I could see the bit of faint red in his beard along his jaw, the spot on his T-shirt where it was worn thin from years of washing, the veins on the inside of his tanned forearm, and how strong his hands must be.

“It’s on its way from great to awesome,” I answered, wrapping my arms around the tree behind me, looking for all the world like a damsel in distress. I gazed up at him through lowered lashes, California Roxie on the case. “Especially if you keep coming this way.”

The grin that crept across his face was less friendly neighborhood farmer and more sexy neighborhood pirate. Then he was suddenly there, inside my dance space.

It was time to kick this summer romance into gear. There I was, leaning against a tree in a forest with my arms behind me, my breasts thrust forward in the international signal for kiss me, you fool. I looked like the prow of a ship. And there he was, all slow amble and eyes blazing and forearms temptation, a little bit stranger and a little sexy danger.

And then there it was—a huge bumblebee, bobbing on the unseen flower highway. It buzzed my ear, dive-bombed my neck, laughed in my face, and flew right down between my outthrust boobs.

I instantly became a flailing, screaming, beating-at-my-chest ball of freak-out. I tore off my shirt to get at the bee and ran in circles around the tree, slapping at my bra while shrieking at the top of my lungs.

“Roxie? Roxie! What the hell are you—”

“Beeeeeeeeeeee!” I shouted as he stopped me cold, closing his hands around my arms and trying—but not hard enough—to not look down at my tits, now struggling to stay inside their cups.

“Okay, calm down. It won’t sting if you calm—”

“Yes it will! Bees are *s!” I screamed, shimmying like Charo and trying to break away.

“Are you allergic?”

“No!”

“Then stop squirming!”

“No!”

“Settle down, please.”

“Fuck off!” I thrashed as the bee buzzed inside my bra. “Beeeeee!”

My primeval brain kicked in, and suddenly a vertical escape seemed to be my only option. I climbed Leo like a totem pole. He got a mouthful of abdomen as I surged onto his shoulders. I wrapped my legs around his head, thighs to ears, and arched backward into the tree. With bark at my back and a scream at my lips, I struck at my bra again. The bee looked at me, and I looked at him, and he glared.

Though I’ve never been stung by a bee before, I’ve always had a fear of all things buzzy. I’ve left garden parties, eaten inside at barbecues, and refused to hold flowers at an outdoor wedding once, all because of one tiny buzz.

I swatted at my boobs again once more, and finally succeeded in knocking him clear. He zigged and zagged drunkenly a few times, throwing me a nasty glance over his bee shoulder, then buzzed off into the forest to do whatever he was doing before the crazy lady decided to implode. “Ugh,” I said, shivering.

“Ugh?” a voice said from below.

I remembered where I was, what had happened, and where Leo now had his face. Looking down, I brushed his sandy blond hair back from his brow to see his eyes staring up into mine.